of tonight's discussion and we want you to buy the book, donald will be here to sign it. >> took the words right out of my mouth. thank you, thank you so much, thank you for joining us. thank you so much. >> be up-to-date in the latest in publishing with booktv's podcasts about books with current nonfiction book releases plus bestseller lists as well as industry news and trends through insider interviews, you can find about books on c-span now, our free mobile apps or wherever you get your podcasts. weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast which every saturday american history tv documentamerica's store.

on sunday, booktv brings the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 comes from these television companies and more including buckeye broadband. >> buckeye broadband along with these television companies supports c-span2 as a public service. >> qian wang is with us today, she is a graduate of yale law school, formerly a commercial litigator, she's now managing partner of gottlieb and wang, advocating education and civil rights. her writing has appeared in major publications such as the new york times and the washington post, she lives in

brooklyn, with her husband and their two rescue dogs, salty and pepper. please give a warm savannah welcome to qian wang. in the episode of seinfeld titled library cop a library investigation officer named lieutenant brookeman visits jerry's apartment. the visit occurs because according to library records jerry had had henry miller's topic of cancer checked out since 1971, but according to jerry he returned it that same year. when he learns of the lama, cramer is terrified. do you know how much that comes to? that is a nickel a day for 20 years.

is going to be $50,000. when jerry corrects him, it doesn't work like that, kramer gives voice to a fear that would have sent chills through my body as a child. at a time a day it is one hundred thousand dollars. when lieutenant book superman arrived on the scene, he delivers perhaps the best monologue of the series, and i'm going to try to do it justice. let me tell you something, funny boy. you know that little stamp, the one that says new york public library, that may not mean anything to you, but it means a lot to me, sure, go ahead, laugh if you want to, i have seen your type before, flashy, flaunting convention, i know what you are thinking. what is this guy making such a big stink about all library books? but let me give you a hint, junior. maybe we can live without

libraries, people like you and me, maybe, sure, we are too old to change the world, but what about that kid sitting down, opening a book right now in a branch at the local library and finding drawings of pps on the cat in the hat and the five chinese brothers, doesn't he deserve better? look, if you think this is about overdue fines and missing books, you better think again. okay. at this point, i know what you are thinking. what is she doing? why is she starting with this? when will she stop? i am afraid to tell you, i will never stop quoting seinfeld. as a jewish new yorker who grew up in the 90s, i am legally required to open every with a reference to seinfeld which i don't make the rules.

the reality is it is beautiful special days like this when so many of us get to get together and celebrate the written word that the truth of this monologue comes to me. he might have been comically overzealous about his job, had to live up to his name after all, but he also got something very right. books are so much more than words on paper. for a lonely child they may well be her home, her refuge, her pipeline to a brighter future. i know this because i was that child. when i moved to america from china in 1994, everything disappeared over night. for the first time in my life i found myself a racial minority in a land where i didn't speak

the language. on a continent where i knew no one but my parents which my parents, professors in china, were thrown into 14 hours of physical labor at the sweatshop where we made pennies per article of clothing, at the sushi plant where my mother's skin turned purple from unrelenting exposure to ice water. learning that i was newly, quote, illegal, i walked the other way whenever i saw anyone in uniform, cop or custodian. the first english word i learned was a slur for chinese, a word that etched into my brain, certain knowledge that my race was repugnant. the memory of our first days in america still come to me in a fog of fear, loneliness and hunger. i still remember the confusion that enveloped me as i wondered

how the chinese could call this land beautiful country. but albert einstein once said the only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of the library. we call that man a genius for a reason. when i found the branch a block from my elementary school one day, the fog and confusion dissipated and my world opened up again. i was no longer alone. the library could not restore my life in china, give me back my family and friends, but it did supply new companions, the big red dog, the very hungary caterpillar, the baron stain bears, and the babysitters club

and sweet valley high. thanks to the library, i was no longer living alone with my parents in a single room, sharing bathroom and kitchen with rotation of immigrant families. instead, i was sitting in claudia's bedroom in stony brook, connecticut, munching oreos, hanging out with my friends and fielding babysitting calls just like any other american kid. fans of the babysitters club may recall that claudia loved to hide junkfood in hollow books. that reminded me of home. growing up in a persecuted, dissident family during china's cultural revolution, my father hid his favorite english books, many of them banned, under the floorboards of his often ransacked and rated home. he would later become an english literature professor,

but quickly found that even in his classrooms, he was not free to teach his students the critical thought and social commentary he so admired in the words of mark twain and charles dickens. he often told me, returning frustrated from days of censored teaching with stacks of his favorite books under his arms, narrative is power. and nothing matters more than the stories we tell. that message, perhaps, is more important now than ever before. every time i heard this in china i thought i knew what he meant, but i did not really feel it, believe it or live it until i arrived in america and discovered the safety of books. as i taught myself english on volume after volume, learning about the parts of america

otherwise inaccessible to me i learned that i was not too different from the kids the book so often portrayed. and so as i write in "beautiful country: a memoir," from their where there was no saving me. i lived and breathed books. you see, i actually think bookman may have understated the importance of books. he failed to say that books save lives, the books offer companionship for the lonely, a roadmap for the lost, a refuge for the persecuted. in the darkness of undocumented life, our number one priority was blending in. my father told me early and often if i could learn to speak english perfectly just like a native speaker, i could plausibly say that i had been born here, a full and

legitimate american, and aroused no suspicion about my immigration status. if i could blend in, i knew exactly what christmas was and what los angeles looked like, i would fit in just like another american kid. that information, that access to safety and belonging was freely available to me in one place and one place alone. in my work now as an education lawyer i see the sanctuary that books offer to the children, the rest of our society seems to have forgotten. for the children who have no adult supervision after school, no means of traveling around the world, no one telling them they are loved, they are safe, they are worthy, every single volume offers the voice, the

hope and the guidance they need to dare to chart different paths, to dream a bigger dream for themselves. and for those children, books offer a home in the present and in the future. this is even more true for other children than it once was for me because i was fortunate to have landed in a large city where i could walk from library to library, even bookstore to bookstore and avail myself of all the public resources for free. i had countless books at my disposal. i chose for myself the stories i wanted to read and yet even in that freedom, i felt at times lost. reflections of my life came only in slivers.

in the diary of anne frank whose identity meant that she too had to grow up in hiding and through the eyes of jonas, training under the giver, seeing all that was invisible to others. those glimmers of recognition were even more precious because they were rare, and under their scant life, i felt seen. i hoped they signaled i might even be worthy. of america can love those characters, perhaps i too could be loved. perhaps i was not so different after all. had a grown up in a different part of the united states or a different time, those glimmers might not have been available to me. it is worth returning at this point to my father's sage words, narrative is power, and

nothing matters more than the stories we tell. just days ago, the american library association reported that this past fall an unprecedented 330 challenges to their books. in november i was fortunate to speak at a library and convention where i was shocked to learn that the act of providing equal access to books and resources has become more politicized and exhausting than ever. the movement to ban books is not just happening in our classrooms. it is happening in our libraries, across our nation and our discourse. i am sure you all remember a time in your childhood when your parents were godlike. 200 feet tall, all-knowing, all-encompassing. as long as they were around, you were safe.

for me, that smokescreen faded early. when i landed at jfk airport at age 7, i saw my parents shrink down to mere mortal size. overnight, they were reduced to fallible beings who were just as confused and afraid and lost as i was. but for me, library books and their characters never lost that holy quality. over the years as i learned to fear all authority figures under the threat of discovery, deportation, i never feared librarians. they were the hosts to my best friends, the only beings with whom it was safe to be my true self, those friends included charlotte and wilbur, who to this day remain my northstar for friendship. julie at the walls, matilda who

still keeps me company at times when i feel singularly odd. when i feel that i alone have endured the stress of moving an abrupt and difficult conditions, i just need to think about mrs. frisby and the rats of nimh. through the library i learned about thurgood marshall and ruth bader ginsburg. some 25 years ago that i resolved to become a lawyer like them and change the story our country chose to tell in courtrooms and laws and books. neither that day nor that conviction has left me. through the treasures of the books that i discovered are etched into my being, my heart still mourns where the redfern grows, the silliness on the

wayside school and feels itself with feminism with a wrinkle in time. the honor of finding books, perhaps despite all messaging, i was not singularly unwanted, perhaps i was just as worthy as the next child. to this day whenever i feel scared and lost there a few things more comforting than the site and smell of books, because at a book festival at 9 am, i expect you can relate. it may be safe to share a confession. i am not that different from jerry.

sometime over the winter in the fifth grade in 1997 or 1998 i had a missing, overdue book. as i checked out a new batch of books one afternoon the librarian said there was a problem. i appeared to have a book out that was quickly accruing fines. i remembered returning at the week before but the system had no record of it. when i heard this i all but sank into the ground, what would happen? what i not be allowed to borrow books anymore? what i get me as my parents thrown into prison from the debt from my overdue fees? would i get to read in prison? worst of all as i went home, and indeed no longer had the book, whether because i had lost it or returned it without

record, what would happen? did the library have other copies or what i forever deprive the other children of that ranch, that volume? what had i done? the fear was particular weighty because the book in question had been number 82 in the babysitters club series. don't worry, you might not have the numbers memorized like i do but that just means you are a normal person. number 82 in the babysitters club series was called jesse and the troublemaker. it primarily follow jessica ramsey's frustrations and adventures with one sitting charge, danielle roberts, both of these characters meant the world to me. jesse was the only black member of the babysitters club and it felt her family was the only black family in town. like claudia, the only asian

member, jesse hit upon things like prejudice and ignorance that were all too, and in my life. meanwhile, danielle was a child with leukemia. while i was fortunate enough not to have endured anything like what danielle went through, i had a sick mother and we were terrified of all attention from doctors, hospitals or otherwise. jesse's and danielle's experiences, apart and then together, i found in a book reflections of my reality and i have gone in this place where no other child struggling with similar issues could find the comfort that i did and that to me is the absolute worst. in the end, of course, my library and was far more

lenient than kramer would have suggested. there would be no $100,000 charge for me. she said they would flag the book in the system and give it 6 months to reemerge. i promised that i would return home and looked thoroughly just in case i had really forgotten it somewhere and seeing the tears in my eyes, she choked back a laugh and said don't worry, dear, it always turns up. and of course she was right. i had not been at home, but a few months later when i inquired about the e-book at checkout and i always did, its absence had become a new pet i could not stop thinking about. relief poured over me as i was told yes, the book had been found, the book had been found!

the flag had been removed from my account and the overdue charges that had been growing, if not in the system, then certainly in my brain, were wiped free. i was free. that experience stayed with me because even in a branch for of books, a series with endless volumes, for child who was always reading 5 books at once, every individual book mattered. because of what it portrayed. because of the message it shared. because of the heart is uniquely positioned to touch. that motivated me to write my book. the belief that my story and my life might matter to just one person. perhaps i could signal to an immigrant child still living in hunger that she too deserved to be on shelves.

perhaps i might dare hope from my book to one day connect with just one person out there. to tell them i am worthy of doing -- being seen. isn't that why we are drawn to read, to write, to commune in the power of storytelling. but what happened to the fabric of our society, our empathy, our connection, our communities, when we remove one book, then another, and another, like a row of dominoes that collapse on each other. children, teens, and adults go then, to feel less lonely, less addressed.

as you walk around in beautiful savannah today, take a moment to soak it all in. what an immense privilege and enjoy it is to be immersed in the so many stories, so many perspectives, so many ideas. you don't have to agree with them all, but you are free to hear them all. this is our country at its greatest, at its most beautiful. this is the kind of day that shows us how very fortunate we are to live in these united states, how empowered we are by words that change the world and how we might go forward and share all the stories we are fortunate to hear. today's events indeed are not unlike one big sprawling library. it was jorge luis juarez who

said i imagine paradise would be a kind of library. as you walk around paradise today, hope you might think about all the ways you can preserve and share a piece of this paradise and the people around you in the weeks and months to come. you have the power to rally for change whether that is by donating or volunteering at your library, or calling upon your elected officials to fight for more public resources and high end as i am legally required to open, with that seinfeld quote. maybe we can live without libraries. people like you and me. maybe, we are too old to change

the world, but what about that kid, sitting down, opening a book right now. you can be the voice, the champion that helps remind her that her story too is what makes america beautiful. thank you so much. [applause] >> i'm very happy to take questions, mike, in the middle of the room, keep six feet apart. i was told to say one question per person. if no one asks anything i'm going to have to sing, and i' m tone deaf, just warning you, not a threat.

>> thank you for coming today. you mentioned you work as an education lawyer. did your love of reading influence the decision to go into that field? >> absolutely. unfortunate enough, to be a lawyer and seen inside our legal system, as i practiced over the years, it became very apparent to me the route to systemic change, foundational change in the education system is to of failing all children of more resources, the power of literacy and be with them with that love early and often. it was my experiences of my

child and adult hood practicing law vote pointed made to the direction of educational law that it was the greatest public good that i could contribute. >> your first barnes & noble gift card got wasted on a workbook and dictionary. if you got $50 to barnes & noble today, what would you spend it on? >> i would have to spend it, don't know how much they go for now, but at least 5 to 10 of the babysitters club series. they have recently been recast as graphic novels which i haven't been able to expose myself to because i didn't want to tarnish the original experience i had with them through words, but i would be curious to read those as well. i wish i could get that certificate back.

>> good morning. my question was, i was saddened when i was reading your book that the parallels to the translation by eugene, 25 years previous to yours. i'm curious as to what you see as immigrant experiences now. i think you said 94, you select 28 years later, how are the immigrant experiences, more people coming from china? >> thank you for asking that question. i am honored to be compared to her. the sad truth is that i don't see a huge change. i see advances in the way we talk about immigrants and resources we make available to new immigrants but so often what i see on the ground in chinatown or just walking

around new york city, the same conditions. the problem with the american dream is things may have materially changed for me, but as i am walking from my fancy home to my fancy law office on the way there, i still see young immigrant children going through the trash, seeing in their eyes some of the same pain and fear i myself grappled with decades ago. in those moments i so want to pick up that child and say it will be okay, you are seen and there are people out there fighting for you but i am afraid that would terrify the child more. it is all i can do to keep working and waking up every day and pushing for that change but often in those moments, survivor's guilt follows me and swallows me up and it feels like not enough that i can do

every day to take away the reality. >> my book club read your book and we were curious why you ended it when you did. there's a lot more life. just a question. >> i always wanted this book to focus on those five years. i know it is odd to say of a memoir but i really didn't think of my book as being about me or my life. i wanted it to be a celebration and a tribute to new immigrants, children, that very special and almost universal time in our childhood where we go out in the world and don't understand what is going on and we are so open and vulnerable and learn to become guarded and the things that can save us,

the things that are dangerous to us. i wanted to really hone into those precious years because when you peel back all the layers it is that little child inside all of us that drives so many of our decisions and the way we engage and interact with the world and when i looked, that 7-year-old child is very much me. and probably the most practical reason is i am only 34 and don't trust myself to have wisdom yet to have enough important things to say about the later years but a lot of people have asked me that question. i'm thinking of a follow-on. >> loved your talk. i grew up in a small rural community.

we had a bookmobile. when i became of school-age my primary means of having a book was the school library, that was really for me, i went to law school too. i am curious what you are feeling because you are an education lawyer as well, the fact that the last two years so many children have not been able to be physically in a school with perhaps access to the school library which is the only place they can get books. now that they are going back we can't predict what might happen next year or the year after. your thoughts on that? because school libraries are so important. >> the pandemic magnified social economic divides. when covid 19 was first announced, my first thought, the children who get meals in schools because i relied on those free meals. once you are not required to be there every day it may no

longer be feasible or feel safe to go out to get that meal. what happens to those children who don't have food at home or books at home or who don't have internet access. what i have seen from engaging with community librarians including adam square is these librarians are working on having loan out ipads and computers where children can access pdf resources and books online, they are sending out virtual resources every day and making sure families are attuned to them. the librarians have become the front lines of the pandemic for that underserved community. even so, in my work at my firm i have seen a lot of development will delays. as we know, one year of missed education has ripple effects

across the child's future. everything we are focusing on to minimize those delays, minimize those gaps and discrepancies but it is a valid concern and making those public resources as widely available as possible even for those who may not have internet access have access to electronic devices, should be first and foremost goal of the government and agency and libraries and community members. >> okay. >> i am curious. only halfway through your book.

with all of the contact you had as a child, the good and bad, have you run into any of those people as a grown-up? >> you mean the teachers, everybody? >> teachers, other students, the little girl who wanted to translate for you, any of those influences, you had so many. as an adult have you run into any of them again? >> i was fortunate to have found a very close-knit and tightknit community of good, bad, good people, and support, and i am leaving from here to go to the airport because my best friend from the third grade is getting married tomorrow and i am officiating. i am very excited. i never officiated before. i hope i don't mess it up. the book also brought me back

to ts one hundred 24 where i went to element to school and spoke to a lot of the teachers there including my second grade teacher who is still teaching there as well as my former classmates who are teachers and they also had some choice words to say about the teacher i described as mister kane. i've got a lot of remailed that e-mails bemoaning teachers like him. teaching is a hard job. i am not connected with him. most special, perhaps, is my third grade teacher, the principal put us in touch and i sent her photos of the charlotte's web copy that she gave me when i was 8 years old and she could not believe that i had kept it all of these years. but then she sent me copies of cards that i gave her, often of gibberish that she kept for 28

years, 30 years, and i did not remember. i remember the little bit, if you read my book, how much of a smart kid i was. in one of the cards, i was purportedly apologizing for what i had gotten in trouble with, which was speaking chinese. i said it wasn't my fault, my friend was the one who did it. it was followed by a riddle, what do you call which on a beach? i think i copied it from somewhere. to think that she thought that line of random rambling was special enough to keep, it made me cry instantaneously. it is so very special. and she now has children of her own, planning to meet up in brooklyn when everything gets a little bit less hectic. this book has brought about so many develop attend connections i could not have fathomed. i feel like the luckiest person

in the world and it has been special connecting with readers. everyone like you, the book has resonated more than i could have fought because it really does prove my initial hypothesis with writing "beautiful country: a memoir". when you peel back the labels, we are not different at all. thank you so much. [applause] >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday, american history tv documents america's story. sundays, booktv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 comes from these television companies and more including charter communications. >> broadband is the force for

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